Benefits of Membership in Society for the Preservation of Greek Housing

1. Ability to raise tax-deductible funds from your alumni for qualified restoration/renovation projects. The Society may provide grants for:

A.Health and safety code requirements that do not result in the loss of character-de­fining spaces, features and finishes;

B. Major structural rehabilitation or restoration

C. Exterior rehabilitation or restoration;

D. Interior restoration or rehabilitation.

In this regard grants could be given for sprinkler and alarm systems, bathroom renovations, kitchen fire-suppression equipment, HVAC system renovations, enclosed egress stairways, porch and patio renovation or restoration.

2. Help with archiving chapter house blueprints and drawings.

3. Reduced costs of research and application for National Register of Historic Places status for your chapter house.

4. Networking with concerned alumni and univer­sity administrators dedicated to preserving Greek life on your campus.

In meeting the ten standards set forth by the Sec­retary of the Interior, the Society will give consideration to the following priority of preserving options:

A. Identifying, retaining and preserving the functional and decorative features that are important in defining the overall historic character of the building.

B. Protecting and maintaining features through appropriate surface treatments such as cleaning, rust removal, limited paint removal, and re-application of pro­tective coating systems.

C. Evaluating the overall condition of mate­rials to determine whether more than pro­tection and maintenance are required, that is, if repairs to the features will be necessary.

D. Repairing features by patching, piecing in, consolidating or otherwise reinforcing the features using recognized preservation methods. Repair may also include the lim­ited replacement in kind, or with compat­ible substitute materials, of those exten­sively deteriorated or missing parts of fea­tures where there are surviving prototypes.

E. Replacing in kind an entire feature that is too deteriorated to repair-if the overall form and detailing are still evident to guide the new work. If using the same kind of materials is not technically or economi­cally feasible, then a compatible substi­tute may be considered.

F. Designing and installing new features when historic features are completely missing. The replacement features may be an accurate restoration using historical, pictorial and physical documentation; or be a new design that is compatible with the historic character of the building, dis­trict or neighborhood.

G. Alterations or additions should be com­patible with the overall design of the build­ing, inconspicuous from the public right-of-way, designed not to damage or ob­scure character-defining features, and, done in a manner that makes clear what is historic and what is not and is new.
Rules SPGH Must Follow - “Standards for Rehabilitation”
All SPGH preservation grant applications will be judged with reference to the Secretary of the Interior’s ‘Standards for Rehabilitation”(36 C FR 67).

Rehabilitation is defined as the process of return­ing a property to a state of utility, through repair or alter­ation, which makes possible an efficient contemporary use while preserving those portions and features of the prop­erty which are significant to it’s historic, architectural and cultural values. The Society can provide you with a copy of the standards if you request them.